Universal Harvester

There is a lot to love and a lot of brilliance in this book. From meditations on the slow sadness of entropy and the pain of distance (temporal, relational, and geographical) to the masterful use of stacking themes (memories and videotapes and generational PoVs) to the unfalteringly gorgeous prose (no one can in good conscience say the John Darnielle/The Mountain Goats aren't poetic geniuses), but the whole thing rang pretty hollow to me. I get what he was trying for and think it's an amazing attempt at real art, but he kinda lost the thread in making it a good book first. I really wanted to like it more than I actually did. It's got me more than interested in reading his other stuff though.